Journals are inconsistent in their choice of articles to be fast-tracked

A study of accelerated publication versus the usual forms of publication in two leading medical journals shows that current practices for selecting articles to be “fast-tracked” are inconsistent.

Authors of the study, which appears in CMAJ, the Canadian Medical Association's journal (2002;166:1137-43), are from four Canadian universities and the University of Lausanne, Switzerland.

The researchers identified six articles from each of two journals—the New England Journal of Medicine and the Lancet—that were prereleased on the journals' websites, and they then matched them with 12 control articles, according to the journal, disease or procedure, theme area, and …